HELP Committee Passes a "Marlboro Protection Act" (Sen. Mike Enzi)

The HELP Committee today approved a Democrat bill that coddles Big Tobacco’s ambitious marketing plans while protecting the industry’s best tools to recruit and addict young smokers to inherently dangerous tobacco products.

Trying to make cigarettes safer through a billion-dollar bureaucracy is a waste of time and money. The right approach is to get people to stop smoking, or better yet, never to start. Unfortunately, this bill just doesn’t do that. I believe we can do better.

Tobacco is one of the biggest contributors to our nation’s growing health care crisis. We need to fight the war on tobacco head on, not sign a peace treaty with Philip Morris, a company that perpetuates and profits from the crisis. Big Tobacco supports this bill because they have a stake in maintaining the status quo. I don't. They’re happy with a bill that doesn’t stop people from smoking; I’m not. I want real change. We can and we must do better than this bill.

The HELP Committee approved the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,